Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that ABRAHAM ADENIYI was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos to three years in prison for operating a money laundering scheme that laundered nearly $8 million of wire fraud proceeds. ADENIYI previously pled guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. [Read more]
Anti-money laundering (AML) laws are intimately connected with the law enforcement agencies of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), along with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Financial Intelligence Unit, and the Financial Action Task Force. OFAC is in charge of enforcing American economic sanctions with businesses or individuals involved with a foreign bank or financial institution. [Read more]
On March 9, 2020, a jury returned a verdict of guilty after a seven-day trial. Bondonno was convicted of five counts of wire fraud, one count of mail fraud, one count of conspiracy to launder money, and 27 counts of promoting money laundering. The jury found Bondonno not guilty on four counts of money laundering concealment. [Read more]
While embezzlement and money laundering are both financial offenses that often involve the movement of large sums of money, the terms are far from interchangeable. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), between two and five percent of global GDP is laundered annually – amounting to approximately $800 billion to $2 trillion. [Read more]
The U.S. indicted a Russian national for his alleged role in a US$150 million money laundering case. 65 million of which was used to illicitly purchase overseas gold bullion. [Read more]
The former National Treasurer of Venezuela and her husband were each sentenced today to 15 years in prison. They were sentenced for their roles in a multibillion-dollar bribery and money laundering scheme. [Read more]
The cryptocurrency ecosystem is an ocean filled with several important acronyms you can’t overlook, and it may feel overwhelming to learn them all. However, two you will hear now and then in the ecosystem are AML and KYC. [Read more]
The Justice Department announced today a coordinated international takedown of ChipMixer, a darknet cryptocurrency mixer responsible for laundering more than $3 billion worth of cryptocurrency, between 2017 and the present, in furtherance of, among other activities, ransomware, darknet market, fraud, cryptocurrency heists and other hacking schemes. The operation involved U.S. federal law enforcement’s court-authorized seizure of two domains that directed users to the ChipMixer service and one Github account, as well as the German Federal Criminal Police’s (the Bundeskriminalamt) seizure of the ChipMixer back-end servers and more than $46 million in cryptocurrency. [Read more]
New regulations are set to come into effect in the US. Requiring businesses to submit personal identification documents to the federal government to aid in the prevention of money laundering. Under the Corporate Transparency Act, passed as part of the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Act in the National Defense Authorisation Act for Fiscal Year 2021, a federal database containing personal and business information will be created. Database will be used to store information about who owns and operates legal entities within the United States. [Read more]
A three-count indictment was unsealed today in United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York charging Mohammad Bazzi with, mainly, money laundering. He is a Lebanese and Belgian citizen, and Talal Chahine, a Lebanese citizen. Charged with conspiracy to conduct and cause United States persons to conduct unlawful transactions with a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. Also, attempt to conduct and cause United States persons to conduct unlawful transactions with a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, and money laundering conspiracy. The indictment was returned under seal by a federal grand jury sitting in Brooklyn, New York on January 27, 2023, and relates to Bazzi and Chahine’s alleged activities in the United States, as directed from Lebanon. [Read more]
